Barely a year after NIEHS announced $30 million in funding to support research on the chemical bisphenol A, new grantee findings are already emerging. Gail Prins, Ph.D, of the University of Illinois at Chicago, presented data during a seminar at NIEHS on how the dose levels and the route of administration of BPA given in her rat model are relevant to human exposure levels.

The lecture, organized by Jerry Heindel, Ph.D., an acting branch chief in the NIEHS Division of Extramural Research and Training, attracted an at-capacity audience Sept. 21. It began with an introduction to the rat model Prins uses for her work and an overview of prostate cancer — the second leading cause of cancer death in American men behind lung cancer.

Prins said her lab developed what she referred to as a two-hit model, giving rats low doses of estrogenic compounds including BPA, soon after birth, and then testosterone and estradiol later in life, to mimic what happens with aging in humans. Using this model, she has shown that low doses of estrogen and BPA early in life would impact the susceptibility of prostate cancer later in life.